mardi 2 décembre 2014

CMI on Galileo again (not their most honest topic!)

It is actually a small paragraph from them* and then a paragraph from Peter Harrisson quoted by them which I will focus on. The rest of today's article is decent.

So what are the facts? With his telescope, Galileo carried out repeatable observations which refuted the geocentric (earth-centred) systems of Aristotle and Ptolemy, and extended the heliocentric (sun-centred) system of Copernicus. He observed that the sun had spots which moved across its surface, showing that the sun was not ‘perfect’ and that it rotated; he observed the phases of Venus, showing that Venus must orbit the sun; and he discovered four moons that revolve around Jupiter, not the Earth, showing that the Earth was not the centre of everything. He also observed three comets pass effortlessly through Ptolemy’s ‘crystalline spheres’ (in which the planets and stars supposedly moved around the Earth), showing that these spheres must be imaginary.

Bit by bit now:

With his telescope, Galileo carried out repeatable observations

Yes.

which refuted the geocentric (earth-centred) systems of Aristotle and Ptolemy,

but not the equally geocentric system of Tycho Brahe

and extended the heliocentric (sun-centred) system of Copernicus.

or the geocentric system of Tycho Brahe.

He observed that the sun had spots which moved across its surface, showing that the sun was not ‘perfect’ and that it rotated;

which was not condemned

and he observed the phases of Venus, showing that Venus must orbit the sun;

which was not condemned, and which is part of Tycho Brahe's system

and he discovered four moons that revolve around Jupiter, not the Earth,

which was not condemned

showing that the Earth was not the centre of everything.

... not the DIRECT centre of everything.

He also observed three comets pass effortlessly through Ptolemy’s ‘crystalline spheres’ (in which the planets and stars supposedly moved around the Earth), showing that these spheres must be imaginary.

Or aethereal. Either way, that observation also was not condemned. In fact none of his direct observations and none of their strictly logical conclusions were condemned.

Here is a quote from Peter Harrisson through CMI today:

Peter Harrison (Prof. of Science and Religion, University of Oxford) correctly refutes this disinformation, saying it was “a conflict between two sciences; a conflict between traditional Aristotelian science and a new science that Galileo is proposing. … Catholicism reacts because its authority is under threat, but that’s not a question to do with science and religion; it’s a question to do with the politics and authority.”

a conflict between two sciences;

between three actually: Galileo took account of his own and of Ptolemaic Aristotelians. He took no account of Tycho Brahe.

a conflict between traditional Aristotelian science and a new science that Galileo is proposing.

Peter Harrisson no doubt has Galileo among his scientific heros and read the conflict through Galileo's pen. So did Chaberlot, basically, though he provides information of other points as well.

…

What exactly is left out here?

Catholicism reacts because its authority is under threat, but that’s not a question to do with science and religion; it’s a question to do with the politics and authority.

That is an assessment, not a piece of factual information no one could think otherwise about.

The "authority of the Catholic Church" involves, as per Trent:

Inerrancy of all Scripture in each passage, at least as per original (translations used by Church can contain factual errors only if not doctrinal, say whether Vulgate is better or worse than Septuagint for dating the age of Heaven and Earth - but if translation x differs from original, it would stand to reason the matters are small and correctable from other versions).

Inerrancy of, not each single Church Father, but all Church Fathers taken together when unanimous on a matter.

But it is very possible Peter Harrison regards neither (outside religious topics) as "religion". I am not even sure he regarded the hasty conclusions of Galileo as science. Chaberlot named "six arguments" from Galileo and "six proofs" available later for Heliocentrism (I refuted all twelve, but that is in French).

It would be very wrong to say all Church Fathers had supported Aristotle or all had supported Ptolemy in every detail.

Someone wanted to ridicule Church Fathers on a forum and called in how such and such one had believed in Crystalline spheres. On that forum, I replied "sure, I'll believe that too, if all Church Fathers are unanimous on it." They are not. The ones that supported a Hebraising, flat Earth containing (but not exclusively defined by that) cosmology were believing each star and planet and sun and moon went as the body we see through basically empty space. Neither aether (which I support, see Coriolis) nor crystalline spheres for those ones. Hence, crystalline spheres can be attacked without attacking the authority of the Catholic Church.

But CMI continues lying (or at best repeating lies, but I have tried to point it out!) in its nearly Masonic reverence for Galileo.

How many times is it now that they neglect to mention the Joshua 10:13 verse which was very much up to a debate between Galileo and St Robert Bellarmine in the 1616 process against a book of his? They systematically explain the verse - when they mention it as if it were just any inquiry, and as if it had no relation to Galileo case - according to Galileo's and against St Robert Bellarmine's understanding of it. They also fail to mention that St Robert Bellarmine fully understood the position of Galileo and gave a refutation of it: "if Earth had stopped turning around itself, only, then Moon would have continued, since not tied to Earth". Their writer John Gideon Hartnett recently was on a forum from which I was excluded where I was repeatedly asked what my favourite verse was while I had made it clear alreay it was Joshua 10:12 (Joshua adressed no word at all to Earth, so we cannot suppose it was Earth that changed behaviour).

After I had been provoked to defend Catholicism on that forum (YE3C - Astronomy on FB), and had also mentioned my take on what Joshua 10:12 involves and defended it before that, I was banned and Alex Naszados informed another forum (Catholic Cosmology and Geocentrism) that debates involving Geocentrism were for the future banned on the forum where Mike P (SDA, self-employed lawyer, according to profile, I know his last name but abbreviate, since he is not a public figure that I know of).

What CMI is suggesting is that these Creationist astronomers were ONLY being as fixed on one position as the Scientific Establishment of Galileo's time. Not so.

And of course, it was Galileo himself with his heterodox understanding of the Joshua passage, which alerted the Church he was contradicting the Bible. A Dominican prior of San Marco struck the alarm bell on that very occasion. One more thing in Galileo: he refuted Ptolemy on a few points, no problem, but not only did he not refute the Geocentric position of Aristotelians, he did not even refute their "physics of astronomy". As I recently dealt with elsewhere on my blogs.**